“If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be part of such a war,” Salah Bardawil, a member of the organisation’s political bureau in Gaza City, told the Guardian.

He denied the group would launch rockets into Israel at Tehran’s request in response to a strike on its nuclear sites. “Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region,” said Bardawil. “Our strategy is to defend our rights.”

•ABC News discussed with White House counter-terror official Richard Clark what would an Israeli strike on Iran would mean for the US. His rosy predictions? Gas prices double, terror against Americans, cyberwarfare, US Navy casualties in the Persian Gulf, and the US entering the war. Meanwhile, the BBC assessed how Iran might react to an Israeli attack.

• I see Jodi Rudoren‘s getting her feet wet at the AIPAC conference before she takes over the NYT’s Jerusalem bureau.

By insisting that Israel’s military threat isn’t credible – without at the same time explicitly stating that America’s military threat is—the administration reassures Iran that it has little to fear from military action. The Israelis can’t and the Americans won’t.

Suppose you were the Obama administration, confronted by an intransigent Iran but facing an election in November and an American public weary of Middle Eastern wars. Wouldn’t you rather shoehorn an ally into undertaking this risky and unpleasant business in your place? . . .

But if it were my plan to finagle Israel into attacking, I wouldn’t practice a public diplomacy much different from Mr. Obama’s.

•Thomas Friedman: “The only question I have when it comes to President Obama and Israel is whether he is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most.”

•Boaz Bismuth: “Is it possible that the meeting’s big winner was none other than Khamenei? Washington got itself more time. Now let’s just hope Iran doesn’t get the bomb.”

I see staff-eds as the purest voice of the newspaper because they reflect the editorial board’s opinion. I treat them more seriously than columnists, contributors, or blogs. So here’s a separate roundup of the considerable staff-eds I saw.

[Obama] has flatly promised to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — not to try, not to do everything humanly possible, but to stop it, period. In this test, there is no grading on the curve. Obama will either succeed in averting this dread prospect, or he will fail.

But don’t let Monday’s united front foster the illusion that the U.S. has veto power over Israel’s options. If Israelis believe their very existence is in direct peril, their sense of self-defense reality will trump any notions of international unity.

If ABC is correct that even a non-nuclear war in the Gulf could blow gas and oil prices through the roof and any number of vehicle bombs in US cities then the resulting economic downturn will do nobody any good starting with the US Jewish community – even if it makes an opportunity to play nasty games with the American Moslems as well.

Israel indeed has a right to protect its interests but it would be impolitic to re-open the conflict in a manner for which it can be easily blamed. It is vital that if the Iran -Israel conflict goes “hot” and “open” that for starters Israel is playing, “Poland” and not “Germany.”

Remember that the Chinese in the Korean War were the first to fight a war with a nuclear armed opponent which did not – nor since – used its N-capacity. The N-question could easily turn into the most immense bluff as with the Cold War.

I HEAR VARIOUS REACTONS FROM ISRAEL ESPECIALLY FROM MOSSAD PEOPLE.
their remarks are different from P.M. Netanyahu’s. I would say the Mossad knows as much as him. Bibi is in for reelection and it is good to get people fired up.
Our President has many different things on his plate, many more than BiBi.
I Do NOT trust Iran and their Ayotollas nor the Supreme Fuehrer, Iran was supplied by the Russians and Chinese with the very latest weapons and techknowledgy. Unless we tunnel our ways to the nuclear sites and blow them up I doubt very much that air strikes would be successfull even with stealth planes. Large missiles launched a la V-2 the Germans launched at the end of the war, they might be right with smart guidance. They would “arrive” unanounced.
I have my doubts that Iran would bomb Jerusalem and destroy the Temple Mount with their Mosque which is the 3rd most important in their religion.

Australia is a Christian country and was set up on Christian principals in1788. As Australians we are called lucky people in The Lucky Country. We are able to deal with terrorists by locking them up, away from our society. Our intake of refugees last year was 185.000, many were ‘boat people’. They come from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other eastern countries. Maybe some of these could be terrorists? As Christians we have a long term relationship with Israel as it was where Jesus Christ lived his life and he became the most important person in our religion. However, putting politics aside, should Israel’s secueity be threatened by an act of war or in any other way (? nucler weapons development in a nearby country) the question for Israel would not be how; but when to act.

The TORAH says:
121:1-8 “I will lift up mine eyes into the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. HE will not suffer thy foot to be moved: HE that thee will not slumber. Behold, HE that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from evil; HE shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall thy going out and thy coming in FTP this time forth, and even for EVERMORE. ”

Israel, take heed to what THE LORD says and promises, do not trust man or. what they say to you. Their saying is not what you should trust.

Time to warn the one state solution fans that it will not be a solution but another Syria, or Ulster or Palestine without the much maligned British Army to hold the ring, or Malaysia where the British could back the Moslem Malay nationalists to freeze out the Communist terrorists who had made the mistake of letting themselves appear to be a Chinese ethnic party.

Just remember the British end in Raj India, Nigeria and Palestine.

In India all conceded partition which the Indians were Libeeral enough to not oppose, and the casualties were the minorities who had to swap residence but essentially pro rata to the total populations there was not a serious war and things had calmed down within months.

Comparably in Nigeria a united country was handed over but those who wanted a partition took to arms and were beaten. Then the federal units were cut by multiplication and subdivision to prevent a recurrence. Now a different set of disrupters – fundamentalist Moslems can still emerge from the social woodwork and whether they willl be beaten down or left to rot remains to be seen, but it is not a peaceful one state solution.

In Palestine as admitted in the last two chapters of Ed Horne’s, “A Job Well Done,” the British left the partitonees to take it or wreck it having tipped the wink to the Arabs that if they tried to ethnic cleanse the country of Zionist Jews for a one state Arab solution, HMG would turn a Nelsonian blind eye. However Israel was strong enough to get her one Jewish state solution.

Now if the Arabs wish to declare a one state solution they willl still have to make it stick by better services than Israel offfers – highly unlikely – or by force ie a re-run of 1948 in Dec to May first half of the War of Israeli Independence. This too is highly unlikely to succeed in the balance of power as currently visible.

A Third Intifada will be the excuse for the Israelis to mutter “Damn!” and inflict a more severe siege than in the Second Intifada by cuttinig all power water fuel and other transit into Judea and Samaria and expelling all illegal Arabs in Israel – which will make economic slots for the as yet unemployed Haredim even as in the Napoleonic War with the shipping business prosperously full on trooping and supply, it was possible to abolish the slave trade.